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R.I.P. Vine: 2013 – 2016

It seems like only six seconds ago that Vine – the social media application which allows users to piece together short, looping videos to share with their friends and the internet at large – stormed its way onto the social media scene, with the help of its big brother, Twitter. Seemingly out of nowhere stories began to pop up of millennials finding instant fame for their hilarious or inspirational Vine videos, but, as the saying goes: the Vine stars who burn brightest, burns half as long.

Twitter has announced today that it is officially putting the ax to the three year old platform in the coming months. After news of Twitter cutting 9% of their workforce due to a slow revenue period, the news of Vine’s untimely demise shortly followed to the mournful moans of teenagers everywhere.

In a statement given via Medium post, Twitter quelled potential panic regarding the future of the sites existing content saying,

“We value you, your Vines, and are going to do this the right way. You’ll be able to access and download your Vines. We’ll be keeping the website online because we think it’s important to still be able to watch all the incredible Vines that have been made. You will be notified before we make any changes to the app or website.”

Launching at the start of 2013, Vine quickly grew in popularity as yet another handy way for videos to go viral. Many inventive young men and women even launched careers in entertainment off of the short-form video platform. But, unfortunately for the next wave of would-be viral super stars, that window of opportunity is soon to shut for good.

With the introduction of Instagram video and Snapchat, interest began to wane for Twitter’s hopeful video platform and, as is the fate of many social media platforms, the app will soon go away for good. Even though it was only introduced 3 years ago (which Twitter had the gall to refer to as “back in the day”), it feels like Vine has had a good ride.Although it is bitter to see it go and it will surely be missed by some, it is exciting to speculate as to what will be the next flash in the pan social media app: Snugl? Hyper? Wyre? Shots?